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Chapter Twenty-Two
BURKE
“There’s no way those aren’t the same colors.”
She sighed in deep and obvious exasperation. “They are not. This one is grayer. This one is more of a true blue.” She pointed her paintbrush at another sample on the scrap wood. “And this is warmer. You know ... has more yellow in it? How can you not see that?”
I pretended to study the colors, carefully painted in large swatches by the exasperated redhead next to me. When she tilted the scrap wood to the side, putting the front-door samples in full sunlight, I shook my head. “Nope. They look exactly the same to me.”
She muttered something under her breath, and I smothered my grin.
William walked past us, nudging me with his shoulder. “Ignore him, Charlotte. Pick the one on the left. It looks the best in the direct sun.”
I leaned closer to Charlotte when he was past us. “He’s right. The one on the left.”
She smacked my arm. “I knew it.”
“Did you?”
As I walked back into the carriage house, I whistled. She huffed, picking up her paint sample board and taking it into the main house. We’d decided to keep the exterior of the house a clean, crisp white,with warmly stained wood shutters. I’d heard all week about the various combinations we could go with, and why. Most of the time I listened. Sometimes the words went in one ear and out the other, simply because I liked to watch her face while she talked.
Not that I’d ever admit that out loud.
I always managed to keep those kinds of thoughts from the forefront of my mind until I was next to her. When it was possible for my shoulder to brush against hers. Or I was close enough to smell the lotion she used—something with lemon in it. My sister had used a shampoo with lemon in it once, and I’d told her she smelled like Lysol. She’d punched me in the balls and called me an asshole, but if she’d used the same thing as Charlotte, I never would’ve said it. Never would’ve thought it.
Charlotte smelled like sunshine.
Later that day, I was helping a worker throw away some trash—one of the few things I could still do to help now that finish work was in full effect. With a speculative look in his eye, William helped me heave flooring boxes into the dumpster.
“What?” I asked.
“Doesn’t it get crowded in that carriage house?”
The back of my neck always got red when I lied, something Tansy had pointed out once. So I made sure to face William when I answered. “No, it’s fine.”
“The bed in that second bedroom is, like ... a twin, right?”
“I can sleep anywhere,” I told him. That wasn’t a lie, at least.
“Why didn’t you get a hotel? Or rent a place?”
“First time I stayed here was in the spring—everything was booked up with events. Discovered I like being on the property if something comes up.”
His face was perfectly polite when he asked, “Like what?”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “Anything. An emergency.”
William nodded, his face thoughtful.
“You got something to say?”
He held his hands up. “Just ... curious about your relationship with Charlotte is all.”
Yeah, I was curious about my relationship with Charlotte too, but he’d have to pry that admission out of me with a knife.
I eyed him as I tossed another box into the dumpster. “Interested?”
Why thehelldid I ask that? We’d been working together for months, and I’d never seen him be anything but professional with her.
